Mennonite Weekly Review

On my desk is Plain Diversity: Amish Culture and Identities by Stephen Nolt and Thomas Meyers, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007, 256 pages, $48.

Marlin Jeschke, of Goshen, Ind., is retired from teaching at Goshen College.

Nolt and Meyers, professors at Goshen (Ind.) College, explain the considerable variation among Amish people, which the Amish themselves clearly recognize but many outsiders don’t. The authors restrict their study to the Amish of Indiana, though they make comparisons to the Amish of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The authors name three factors that shape Indiana Amish settlements: migration, Ordnung and ethnicity. For example, Indiana’s largest settlement, Elkhart and LaGrange Counties, was also one of the first in the state (early 1840s), and it consists of Pennsylvania and Ohio Amish who migrated West. In this area of 123 districts, or congregations, their Ordnung, or regulations for all aspects of life, is very much decided by local congregations and therefore may vary considerably from district to district.

Ordnung in this large settlement is not uniform as in the Lancaster area settlement of Pennsylvania, where periodic meetings of bishops decide the rules that will apply in all Pennsylvania congregations. But such variation in the Elkhart-LaGrange settlement does not break fellowship as it did in the Holmes County, Ohio, settlement. There, differences in the understanding of Ordnung and its application resulted in splits and the formation of at least four affiliations: Swartzentruber, Weaver, Old Order and New Order Amish.

The Berne area and Allen County (Fort Wayne) settlements (40 and 17 congregations, respectively) are just as old as the Elkhart-Lagrange settlement, having also been established in the early 1840s. But these settlements consist of Swiss Amish who came to these areas directly from Switzerland. They are a decidedly different ethnic group, have different surnames and speak in a dialect so different that the Pennsylvania Dutch Amish have difficulty understanding them. One of the very visible markers in the Swiss Amish Ordnung is the open buggy. Their regulations forbid closed buggies.

Nolt and Meyers report on a more recent migration from Pennsylvania that has established two settlements at opposite sides of central Indiana, east and west of Indianapolis. The Amish of these areas remain in touch with their Pennsylvania mother settlement and observe its Ordnung, as shown by their gray buggies. They make frequent visits back east rather than reaching out in fellowship to other Indiana settlements. But they have prohibited the tobacco-growing engaged in by Pennsylvania Amish farmers and are pleased to live in a rural area away from Lancaster tourism.

Finally, the authors describe four quite different settlements in southern Indiana. The Amish near Paoli came from northern Indiana in 1957. They were committed to moral reform among their youth and to doing away with tobacco use. The 1972 settlement southwest of Salem is New Order, influenced from Ohio. It uses a meetinghouse for its services rather than the homes of its members. The settlement east of Salem is a daughter of Swiss communities in eastern Indiana and bears the marks of that Ordnung, such as open buggies. The 1994 settlement north of Paoli consists of Swartzentruber Amish from Ohio and is committed to the conservative discipline of that affiliation. Still, these four will all get together for a barn raising, and tobacco use gets put away for such a day.

The Amish are quite conscious of differences among themselves. Yet they also recognize their commonalities — the use of the Ausbund hymnal, the practice of shunning, adherence to the Dordrecht Confession, the use of horses and buggies, and traditional clothing and language as separators from the dominant culture. They also have in common an increasing use of paro­chial schools, acceptance of the authority of the local congregation and participation in the National Amish Steering Committee. This committee was formed in 1966 to speak to government with a common voice and to keep Amish across the country informed on matters such as draft legislation, workers’ compensation, building codes and other government regulations.

This is an informative book for anyone interested in our Amish spiritual relatives, fellow heirs of the Anabaptist heritage.

Marlin Jeschke, of Goshen, Ind., is retired from teaching at Goshen College.